07/15/2026
The pace of recruiting new “cannon fodder” for the war against Ukraine in Russia is “slowing down.” As of early July, recruiters had not fulfilled even half of the annual plan, and daily recruitment significantly lags behind this indicator in previous years.
In general, this year’s campaign to recruit contract soldiers in Russia to be sent to war against Ukraine has five key features. Which ones exactly – revealed by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
The first feature: lagging behind in the implementation of the annual plan for the recruitment of contract workers
According to the SZR, as of early July, the contracting plan was less than 50% completed.
About 195 thousand people were contracted, compared to the planned 204.5 thousand.
“The current average daily rate of selection of contract workers ( 1,070–1,090 people) is insufficient for 100% implementation of the plan. This is the biggest difference between this year’s campaign and the 2025 and 2024 campaigns, when about 1,200 people were contracted on average daily,” the SVR said.
Second feature: reduced requirements for potential recruits
In the pursuit of the number of personnel in the occupation army, the Russian military leadership decided to sacrifice “quality”: a relaxation of medical and functional requirements for candidates for signing contracts is being recorded.
The goal is to expand the contingent of potential recruits and reduce the time for their registration and sending to front-line units of the Russian Armed Forces.
“The needs of the Russian side for such steps are dictated by its growing losses on the battlefield. In the first half of the year, total personnel losses reached approximately 196.7 thousand people, of which 115.3 thousand were irretrievable, 80.4 thousand were medical, and about 1 thousand were prisoners of war. Therefore, the number of selected contract soldiers for the Russian Armed Forces is actually comparable to the number of losses,” the SZR says.
Third feature: priority for contracting is given to representatives of small peoples of Russia and residents of the TOT
The occupiers are trying to find new “cannon fodder” primarily among representatives of the small peoples of the Russian Federation: high planned recruitment rates have been set for them. Russia is also trying to drive Ukrainians living in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine into war against Ukraine, which, the SVR reminds, is a gross violation of international law.
Thus, in 2026, the Russian Federation plans to attract about 7.9 thousand residents of the Territorial Territories of Ukraine to participate in hostilities against Ukraine.
But within Russia, the greatest burden (in quantitative terms) of implementing the 2025 and 2026 plans falls on the Central and Volga Federal Districts (92 thousand and 90 thousand people, respectively).
In the Volga Federal District, the largest quantitative recruitment indicators were determined for the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan (12.9 thousand and 12.0 thousand people, respectively).
“This testifies to the Kremlin’s true attitude towards the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation and the inhabitants of the ‘new’ regions, whom it considers as expendable material for the implementation of its aggressive plans,” the intelligence service noted.
Fourth feature: students go to war
The Russian Ministry of Defense, together with the Russian Ministry of Education, planned to recruit more than 50,000 students from higher and secondary specialized education institutions for military service under a contract. However, this has not been very successful so far.
“Despite unprecedented propaganda and administrative pressure, the absolute majority of students do not express a desire to go into military service and participate in hostilities against Ukraine. The recruitment indicators in this category are very far from planned: one in 400 students agrees to serve. Russia’s youth does not want to fight,” the SZR says.
Fifth feature: the bet is on foreign mercenaries
The Kremlin is also trying to solve the problems with recruitment into the ranks of the occupation army by increasing the recruitment of foreign mercenaries: the plan has been increased from 16 to 18.5 thousand foreigners.
To achieve the set targets, Russia actively uses recruiting structures, which usually arrange for mercenaries to arrive in the Russian Federation as labor migrants.
And despite the protests of the states whose citizens Moscow sends to war and which remain Russia’s conditional partners, the Russian Federation does not stop such recruitment.
Typically, potential candidates are lured in with promises of high-paying jobs in the Russian Federation, but upon arrival in the territory of the aggressor state, they are informed that they have personally signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“The Russian Migration Service and some Russian law enforcement agencies widely use blackmail and intimidation against labor migrants (mostly from Central Asian countries), forcing them to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry. Sometimes, the incentive is the possibility of obtaining Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure after a certain period of military service in the Russian Armed Forces under a contract. Therefore, this category is considered by the Kremlin as an important resource for restoring losses on the battlefield,” the SZR report says.
Foreign intelligence is confident that the recruitment situation in Russia this year is evidence of the Putin regime’s declining ability to continue to maintain recruitment rates at the level of previous periods.
As OBOZ.UA wrote, Putin may resort to mass mobilization. The media learned about the difficulties facing the Russian dictator.
It also became known that Russia has intensified the recruitment of Latin American citizens to participate in the war against Ukraine.